


Time that Binds Us

by shadows_of_1832 (SaoirseVictoire)



Series: The Outlander AU [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Samhain, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24852433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaoirseVictoire/pseuds/shadows_of_1832
Summary: “If you’re looking for your cap, Fabrice, I left it on the desk,” he says, turning his head slightly to gesture towards the door she’d come in, before returning his attention back to his task.“I’m not Fabrice,” she says, feeling the warmth rise into her cheeks.He pauses, then turns and rises to his feet, his face going white.
Relationships: Cosette Fauchelevent/Marius Pontmercy, Enjolras/Éponine Thénardier
Series: The Outlander AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953127
Comments: 7
Kudos: 36





	Time that Binds Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angejolras](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angejolras/gifts).



> For the prompt: "Reunion"
> 
> Happy belated birthday!

Eponine stares at the aged newspaper clipping, trying to take in the shock as tears brim in her eyes. It couldn’t be real, it just couldn’t.

He was supposed to dead, or at least, dead in his time’s standards. History was written, the rebellion would fail, and at the barricade of Rue de la Chanverie, there would be no survivors. Yet, here was one of his aliases, as a printer in Rennes, dated 1845.

_Lucien MacRae_

Which was only short for Corentin Gwenaël Lucien MacRae Enjolras, but the document wouldn’t say that.

She looks up at Cosette, who’s smiling from across the table. “How…where did you find this?”

“Marius and I were sorting through some of his family records,” Cosette explains, opening the folder. “There were these clippings in a folder, as well as some notes of correspondence between his many-times-great grandfather and him.

“He survived, ‘Ponine, he survived!” Cosette murmurs with excitement. “You can try to go back!”

Eponine nods, covering her mouth in disbelief. She could go back, if she wanted to, if she just used the same method as she had to get home…She could see him again, and hope with all her heart he hadn’t moved on from her, that she still had his heart as much as he still held hers. They could pick up where they left off, learn each other again. Their separate experiences would have changed them, surely, but not too drastic? They would still be them, right?

And what if he moved on? It would be thirteen years since she returned to her own time, not long before the rise and fall of the barricades. There certainly was that possibility to consider, too, especially if he considered there was a great chance of her not coming back…

And then…

“Mama, have you seen my history notebook? I thought I left it on the coffee table, but it’s not there.”

Eponine turns her head towards the doorway leading into the living room, her twelve-year-old daughter standing there and glancing around the kitchen. “If it’s not in your backpack, Gwen, check the study; I might have been on auto-pilot while tidying things and just set it on the desk.”

“Thanks!” She turns around, and walks out of view.

Goodness, she looked so much like him. Stone-blue eyes, wavy blonde hair, the very same smile...

_“I am not abandoning you!” she says, trying to hold back the tears forming in her eyes._

_“I am not going to leave you alone to fend for yourself,” he replies, pain in his expression. “You would be safer in your own time, once this comes to pass, you and the child.”_

_She pauses, stunned, and lets her hand rest on her still-flat stomach. She looks at him from across the room, wanting to deny but can’t bring herself to. “It’s too soon to tell. How’d you…?”_

_But she knows how he did, because unlike a lot of men she knew, he kept track. In the middle of planning the rebellion alongside the cholera, he somehow paid attention._

_“Oh bloody hell…” she murmurs, and a tear drips down her cheek._

_He strides over to the bed and sits down next to her._

_“That’s the reason you want me to go, isn’t it? Because I’m with child?”_

_“I would be asking the same of you regardless. If what it going to happen, indeed does happen, as you say it will, I do not want you here without someone to protect you,” he explains, reaching for her hand in her lap. “You are strong, you are brave, but if I die, there would be no one to provide for you, and I would rather not increase your chances of living on the streets. You have people in your own time who will help you.”_

_“Corentin, please…” She attempts to plead, but cannot find the words. She knows what’s to happen a few weeks from now, and there is too much to stop it now._

_He releases her hand and wraps an arm around her shoulders, and her head rests upon his shoulder. "I will follow you into the ossuary, see you home before the barricades arise.”_

_“You act like there’s no other way, as if admitting defeat before the battle’s begun!” She pulls away. “Are you even going to try and combat it, go against what you know?”_

_“Until my last breath.”_

How could she leave her? She couldn’t abandon their daughter here, couldn’t depend on Marius and Cosette to care for her. She knows the pain of feeling abandoned thanks to her own parents; she couldn’t put her through it, no, she couldn’t!

But what if she came with her?

Would it be fair to remove her from the time she knows? To rip her away, and to put her through a journey of being pulled apart. And who’s to say they’d end up in the correct time, at the same time?

There was no guarantee. The fact that Eponine made it back to her own time, was only luck, at least in her mind.

And would she be able to travel through the stones at all? There was that to consider as well.

“So, what do you think you’ll do?” Cosette asks.

Eponine shakes her head. “I…I don’t know.”

Cosette glances to the doorway. “Does she know the truth?”

She huffs. “If you had to tell Fantine and Jean-Georges their father was a nineteenth-century Frenchman, how’d you think they take it?”

“She hasn’t grown up with a father. I suppose she may be inclined to believe you, considering that.”

“It’ll look like a cover of some story where a man abandons a woman when she falls pregnant. That seems the likely story, doesn’t it? I don’t need her thinking I was some man’s plaything up until something serious occurred.”

“I don’t think she thinks low of you. I mean, look what you’ve done for her, and you did it all by yourself.”

“I wouldn’t have been able to without your help, and Marius’,” Eponine says, eyes flickering to the newspaper clipping. “You said…you said there were letters?”

“Yes, they’re in Marius’ study, but I did take pictures using my phone.” Cosette takes a moment to pull out her phone, and goes to the pictures before handing the phone to Eponine for her to scroll through. “Does the handwriting look familiar?”

Eponine nods, letting a tear fall down her cheek. “Every letter. It’s his.”

And the fact that he survived is further cemented in her mind.

“Are you going back, then?” Azelma asks when she visits for dinner, Gwen occupied in the other room.

“I want to,” Eponine replies, stirring the boiling pot of pasta. “But I can’t leave Gwen.”

“Take her with you,” she says, shrugging a shoulder as she works on setting the table. “I’m sure she wants to meet him, and he would probably like to meet her. What you’ve told me of him, he’s nothing like our poor excuse of a father.”

“That isn’t what I’m afraid of.” Eponine lays the spoon on the counter. “You, Marius, Cosette…you know, you understand, but Gwen, she’s still a kid. I don’t want her to be ripped from what she’s known. I know what that is like, and I’ve been through it a few too many times myself; you know the feeling, too.”

Her sister nods, pausing. “But it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I mean, if our parents didn’t end up getting locked up, we probably would’ve never made it out of that neighborhood without being in a body bag.”

“No, but…it’s an adjustment. This isn’t just going from one town to the next; it’s a completely different time, a completely different life with different standards.” She gestures to her clothes, a short-sleeve blouse and khaki capris. “If I was there dressed like this, I’d be looked at like some whore, even though to some this is fairly conservative for our time.”

“I think you underestimate her.”

“Also, there is the fact that she might not be able to travel with me.”

“You won’t know unless you try.” Azelma says, glancing into the living room. “You’re right in not wanting to leave her, but this worrying of having to leave her…You might not have to.”

“She also doesn’t know the truth.”

“Eponine!”

“Yes, because telling a kid their father’s a nineteenth century revolutionary sounds like something a sane single mother would tell them.”

Azelma pinches the bridge of her nose then shakes her head. “I can understand you not telling her that when she was, like, five, but she’s old enough to understand some of this. You need to tell her, because the longer you wait, the more difficult it will be for the both of you.”

Eponine takes a deep breath, acknowledging her sister’s logic. All the worrying, the sleepless nights she’s had since finding out about his survival, could be for nothing. Gwen could understand, could potentially travel with her.

But what if she didn’t? What if she thought it was nothing more than some elaborate backstory, a falsehood, to make up for father that was never there?

She wishes for a daguerreotype, but those weren’t invented until a few years after the rebellion, and the miniature portraits and sketches they did have, courtesy of Feuilly, had been left with him.

Having a likeness of him, in some fashion, perhaps would aid her explanation. Would the correspondence be enough, since no such thing existed?

She twists the braided silver band on her left hand. “I know.”

Eponine spends the next few nights, trying to piece together the right words, and begins to think there are no right words, that she just has to say it. Perhaps that was true.

But she had to be careful, especially given the uncertainty of Gwen’s reaction.

She waits until a Friday evening, after dinner, to sit down and bring the truth forward. She feels her heart pounding in her chest as the two of them sit down on the couch.

“Is everything all right, Mama?” Gwen asks, concern in her features, fear in her voice.

“I’m fine,” she replies, reaching to brush a strand of hair from her daughter’s face. “Everything’s…fine.”

“Oh. So no bad news?”

“Good news, actually, but before I can get to that, I have to talk to you about your father.”

Gwen narrows her eyes. “The man that abandoned us?”

“He didn’t abandon us,” Eponine clarifies. “He…he had me leave to keep you and I out of harm’s way.”

She scoffs. “You don’t need to lie to save his image in my eyes; he’s never quite been a person to look up to anyways, since we got pushed aside.”

“It was to protect us, and let me explain why, because it’s a lot to take in.” Eponine says, then begins her story.

Gwen keeps a straight face throughout her explanation. Now and again, her brows would raise or furrow, or the corner of her lip twitch, but she’s listening and not interjecting, which may be a good sign.

“…and now, there’s proof he survived. One of Uncle Marius’ ancestors saved some letters and newspaper clippings bearing your father’s name,” Eponine says, pointing to the photocopies of a few letters and clippings Cosette had brought over earlier that day.

“So in short, my father’s some long-dead revolutionary from the nineteenth century?” Gwen asks, picking up one of the photocopies.

“He likely would have passed by now, yes,” Eponine admits, some sadness in her voice. “But, we could go back, to where the same amount of time passed there as it did here, and he’d still be alive.”

Gwen shakes her head, skeptical. “This is straight out of something you’d see in a sci-fi.”

“Except it’s true,” Eponine says, placing her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “I know it sounds crazy, and I understand if you don’t believe me; it’s a lot. Your Aunt Azelma, Aunt Cosette, and Uncle Marius weren’t quite sure what to think of it either, at first.”

“They know?”

“They do.”

“And now you think is the time to tell me? Now that you ‘know’ he’s alive?” Gwen stands up. “And what’s this whole time-travel nonsense? Were you high or something? You really think my father is some guy from the 1800s?”

“I’ll admit, I probably should have told you sooner.” Eponine takes a deep breath. “And I was not high, and I _know_ who your father is. What reason would I have to lie about that?”

A pause.

“I know it sounds fake and like some cover-up, but it’s really not. I promise you.” Eponine reaches for her daughter’s hand, searching for a trace of belief in her daughter’s face.

Gwen pulls away, then turns around and runs towards her room.

As if on cue, her phone makes a buzzing noise, signaling a text from Azelma.

 _How’d it go?_ reads the message.

 _As well as you’d expected it to…_ she replies.

If the chances of seeing Enjolras again were within her reach at the news of his survival, with this, she felt she had misjudged the distance, of what was centimeters away was, in reality, kilometers.

She leaves Gwen to her thoughts that night, giving her the opportunity to let the news process, sink in. Looks into her room, tells her good night, but gives her the space she wants.

Eponine awakes at three in the morning to a timid, “Mama?”

She turns over in her bed, and she can just make out Gwen’s form thanks to the nightlight in the hallway. Gwen walks to the empty side of the bed and sits down. Eponine shifts around to sit up, and turns on the lamp.

“I’m…not sure if I believe it all to be true,” Gwen starts, looking down. “I want to believe you, but it’s all so…out there…

“I don’t think you’re lying to me, either. If this man from the nineteenth century is my father, I need to accept that. If you lived with him for a time in the 1800s, I need to accept it. While I don’t understand it, it’s something I need to learn to grasp. It’ll take time, but I could, probably, get used to the idea.”

Eponine leans forward, placing a gentle hand on her daughter’s arm, giving a small smile, unsure if the tears in her eyes are from the sudden bright light of the lamp or from her daughter’s words. “Thank you.”

Gwen nods. “So…when can I meet him?”

Azelma, Marius, and Cosette follow Eponine and Gwen as far at the entrance of the catacombs Eponine had come across fifteen years prior. Tearful goodbyes, Marius handing her a worn but empty book and Cosette asking to leave notes in the past for them to find, Azelma struggling so hard to let go of her sister and niece; there was no telling if they would ever come back.

The entrance and daylight fade as the pair descend into the depths, and Eponine, dressed in the same dress she had worn thirteen years ago, lights a match for a candle, lacking a _quinquet_ and knowing a flashlight wouldn’t be too helpful without batteries.

“Do you remember the way?” Gwen asks quietly after a time, dressed in one of Eponine’s old dresses she had made alterations to the fit her daughter’s shorter height and to look closer to the period’s standard. It would have to do, period accuracy be damned until she could get her hands on cotton or wool!

“Not too much further,” Eponine replies. _I think_ …

She pauses for a moment, listening for that distinctive whooshing/humming sound. She closes her eyes, remembering the last time she walked towards it, it was by torchlight, flickering flames around the stones and bones, so scared to leave, not wanting to abandon the man she held so close to her heart.

The sound is faint, but not too far off.

She glances back at Gwen, searching in her expression if she hears it, but her daughter seems more focused on the physical surroundings and any sudden noises.

“Stay close,” Eponine murmurs.

Another few minutes, and the sound makes its presence known.

“What’s that noise?” Gwen asks. “It’s been getting louder.”

“Our ticket to 1845,” Eponine replies, her steps quickening, and she grips her daughter’s wrist, fearing she could lose her.

The sound is almost deafening when they reach a wide open space in the tunnels, a tall, jagged, feather-shaped rock in its center. Eponine looks it up and down, memories flooding back as if they had only happened yesterday.

She takes a deep breath, then turns to Gwen. “You remember what I told you?”

“Yes, Mama,” she answers, removing a tiny gemstone from her pocket and clutching it tightly in her hand. “Focus on him, but if I can’t, focus on you.”

Eponine nods, holding onto another small gemstone. “Right, and don’t let go.”

“Yes, Mama,” a tinge of fear in her voice.

Using her free arm, she brings her daughter close, holding on to her, trying to push away the thought of being separated from her. Losing her was not an option, and never would be.

Gwen, gemstone in hand, reaches with her, and touch the rock with hands clasped tight.

When Eponine comes to, she’s lying on the floor, feeling a bit dazed as she gets to her feet. She walks over and leans against the wall, minding not to touch the bones of the long dead. In the darkness, flicks a match then relights the candle. Then, she looks around.

“Gwen!” she shouts, the dizziness vanishing in the panic. She didn’t let go, she didn’t let go! “Gwen!”

“Here, Mama!” Gwen replies, hidden by an unarranged stack on remains.

Eponine walks towards her, flooded by relief, and hugs her for a moment.

“Did we make it? Are we there?” Gwen asks.

“We won’t know until we’re on the street,” Eponine replies. The underground appeared different in her own time, no stray piles of remains and far more cobwebs from the lack of human contact, but for all she could recall with her current surroundings, not only could they be in the wrong year, possibly wrong century.

After they exit the catacombs and make their way into the streets, what Eponine makes her priority is finding a newspaper, or anything that would give her the year. While the clothing she sees around her doesn’t differ too much from her own and is similar to what she remembered, she does not what to make the mistake if her memory chooses to trick her.

Meanwhile, Gwen’s eyes go wide in awe at this new view of Paris, and it’s a warming sight. Her daughter has spent much of her life on paved streets and cars, hurried people walking past and muttering on their cell phones. Here, it’s mostly cobblestones and carriages, people walking with parasols and tall hats, a scene right out a museum painting.

A shame she had no way of capturing Gwen’s expression. Freeze it in time to look back on years from now. She has her mind engrave the image to memory, praying time won’t wear it away.

Thankfully, in regards to looking a source for the date isn’t too difficult, locating a recently-abandoned newspaper sitting on a bench, and printed clearly near the upper corner of a page.

_October 29, 1845_

“We made it,” Eponine says. “We’re here.”

They arrive in Rennes by mid-afternoon of November first.

“Do you know where we’re going?” Gwen asks, looking around at the half-timbered structures.

“According to Cosette, in Place Saint-Anne, on Saint-Michel,” Eponine replies, arm-and-arm with her daughter, scanning the streets for the off-chance of his familiar face. Would she recognize him if she saw him, after all these years? She had no idea what the barricades could have done to change Enjolras’ appearance, if it had at all.

Would he recognize her after all these years? At thirty-five, she didn’t think she had changed too much from her twenty-two year old self, perhaps faint lines visible when she smiled, at least that she noticed…

After a time, they reach Saint-Michel, and for a moment, Eponine feels a sudden weight in her chest, alongside the excitement of seeing her husband again for the first time in thirteen years. Beyond their experiences, could they be the same people, would they still feel the same?

She knew she felt the same, but would he? Despite the separation, the disasters he went through, up to now, had they changed?

 _It’s too late to be asking those questions now, Thenardier_.

She pauses for a moment, taking notice in a shop window painted fans. Delicately painted scenes and landscapes and even buildings. As she scans through the display, she notices one that faintly reminds her of the Café Musain, and feels a small stab her chest.

“Looks like work Feuilly would have done…” she murmurs, tearing her eyes away.

“What, Mama?” Gwen asks.

“Nothing,” she replies, then looks at the signs marking the shops. “I think the print shop is just up this way.”

They continue walking, and Eponine stops underneath the sign marking MacRae Press. She takes a deep breath.

This was it.

She opens the door, and Gwen follows.

The entrance lead into a small lobby, decorated with a couple of chairs and a desk. A handful of books lay scattered on top of the desk, as well as a worker’s cap. Across from the entrance, there was another door, to where Eponine guessed lead to the presses and work area.

Eponine opens the door and Gwen follows close behind, greeted by rows and rows of papers hanging to dry.

“Wait here,” Eponine murmurs. “I’ll call for you in a moment.”

Gwen nods.

Eponine makes her way through the drying papers to find a man crouched beside an Albion press with his back to her, as if inspecting it. Ink covered his hands and sleeves, some of it making its way into the pulled-back blond hair.

“If you’re looking for your cap, Fabrice, I left it on the desk,” he says, turning his head slightly to gesture towards the door she’d come in, before returning his attention back to his task.

“I’m not Fabrice,” she says, feeling warmth rise into her cheeks.

He pauses, then turns and rises to his feet, his face going white. “Of all the years I neglect the turnip lantern…”

“You don’t think of me as an evil spirit, do you?” she teases out of habit. He hadn’t changed much over the years, Eponine observes, beyond the lines at the edges of his eyes that come with age, and a scar along his hairline that she otherwise would have missed if more strands of hair had come loose from their bindings.

Enjolras takes a few steps towards her, stone-blue eyes narrowed as if trying to make out if she was really there. He reaches out with his left hand, brushing strands out of her face. “It is you.”

“It’s me,” she replies, smiling as she notices the familiar, simple silver band around his finger. After all these years…

He takes a deep, wavering breath, tears forming in his eyes. “You…you came back?”

“You survived,” she says, trying not to cry from joy. “I would’ve been back sooner had I known any earlier.”

“I see…”

She brings herself closer to him and embraces him. She breathes in, remembering the familiarity of his warmth and touch. Her head rests on his shoulder, then she pulls away, meeting his gaze, her fingertips brushing his lightly-ink-smeared face.

He begins to lean into her, then pauses. “The child…are they all right?”

Eponine smiles, nodding. “Our daughter’s well. Perfect.”

At this, he reaches for a nearby stool, sitting down to process the information; she almost grabbed it for him, having the impression he may faint. “A daughter. We…Her name?”

“Gwenaëlle, after your father,” she says, brushing his shoulder. Then, she turns to the direction of the drying papers, and calls out, “Gwen!”

Their daughter’s light footsteps weave through rows, and she pauses when she emerges from them, eyes flickering to her then to Enjolras.

Gwen takes a few steps forward, leaving some distance between her and her father, Eponine between them. There’s a look of uncertainty, of curiosity, in her eyes, perhaps trying to create a reality of the past that was, or placing him where he should have been all these years.

For Enjolras, it’s fascination, being able to put back together blurred visions of the past. Only being able to imagine her until now, not knowing anything of her other than the tiny bump she had been before Eponine went back. And the fact he thought he would never see her…

And it’s here the first tear fall down Enjolras’ cheek.

Eponine moves to place a soft hand on her daughter’s back. “Gwen, I’d like you to meet Corentin Enjolras, your father.”


End file.
